


Blood, Muscle, Skin, and Bone

by lmharmon (orphan_account)



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Eventual Sex, First Kiss, Kissing, Love, M/M, Polyamory, Post-Canon, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:02:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25212859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/lmharmon
Summary: After being reunited, John and James reacquaint themselves with each other.
Relationships: Captain Flint | James McGraw/John Silver, Captain Flint | James McGraw/Thomas Hamilton, Thomas Hamilton/Original Character(s)
Kudos: 40





	Blood, Muscle, Skin, and Bone

****

**1726  
  
Savannah, Province of Georgia**

Silver stood at the port watching his ship, the Black Adder, sail away without him. He felt strangely at peace.

After loud protests from Hands, they finally agreed that Morgan would be the interim captain of the ship (unless the crew had other ideas) while Silver stayed in Savannah for a while. He would meet them in four months time in Fort-Royal. Silver believed that would give him plenty of time to figure out the nagging feeling in his gut that was telling him to stay, and then to get back to the Martinique port. 

When the ship had disappeared over the horizon, Silver turned and made his way to the stables to pick up the horse he’d purchased the day before. He’d been made to pay an exorbitant amount just to keep her in the stables overnight, but Silver didn’t care. After years as a successful pirate captain, he wasn’t exactly hurting for money. 

In the early afternoon, Silver arrived at the Isle of Hope, formerly the Oglethorpe plantation. It was now a fortified town, a safe haven for criminals, escaped slaves, and others who wished to - or had to - live outside of British rule. Unlike the day before, the guards at the gate didn’t ask him for his weapons, but simply let him through without a word. Flint must have talked to them. 

He made his way to Flint’s shop, descriptively called ‘Carpentry & Woodworking’, and tied his horse up outside. When he stepped inside, Flint was talking to a customer and merely gave Silver an inquisitive look before refocusing his attention. 

It had been ten years since Silver had stood on Skeleton Island and pointed a pistol at Flint, and ten years since Madi had banished him from the Maroon Island, effectively distancing Silver from all the people in his life he’d come to care about. Until recently, the only people still in his life from that time were Tom Morgan, Ben Gunn, and Israel Hands - his quartermaster, his bosun, and his advisor. Though it had started out as a relationship of convenience, he had started to believe he could trust them. He had been wrong.

Three years after Silver had taken Flint to Oglethorpe’s, he’d, guilt-ridden, given Morgan, Gunn, and Hands a small ship and crew to go back to Savannah and get him and Thomas Hamilton out. When they’d returned, they’d lied and said that both Flint and Hamilton had died in a yellow fever outbreak at the plantation. Silver had not thought to question it. Instead, he’d spent the last seven years believing his once close friend was dead. It wasn’t until Silver finally returned to Maroon Island and briefly spoke with Madi that he discovered this wasn’t true.  
  
“James isn’t dead,” she had said after Silver had tried to tell her that he was. “Neither is Thomas.” 

Silver had immediately made his way back to Savannah, and had been reunited with Flint the day before. He had not been met with hate or indifference - as had been the case with Madi and her people - but with a hug. Flint had been genuinely happy to see him, and had been pleased when Silver had said he wanted to stay, at least for a bit. 

So why was Flint more wary than excited to see Silver today? He’d have to wait to find out. In the meantime, he wandered to a corner of the shop and busied himself with organizing the items on the shelves while Flint finished up with the customer. 

When the customer left, Silver turned back toward his once-Captain. “Flint,” he said, by way of greeting. 

“John,” Flint said. He insisted on calling Silver ‘John’. 

But Flint did not look up at him. Instead, he started making notes on a diagram for a chest of drawers the customer had left him. After several minutes, he spoke again, “You made quite a fuss around here this morning.” 

Silver frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“Madi’s people showed up here early this morning,” Flint explained. “They seemed to be of the impression that you were coming here to kill me.” 

Shit. 

“Madi’s here?”

“No, Madi’s people. She sent Anne and her ship. They tried to beat you here, to warn me. Apparently, you left the island in quite a rage,” Flint said, finally looking up at Silver with the same inquisitive expression as before. 

Silver had clearly underestimated Madi’s concern for Flint. Silver hadn’t explained to Madi why he’d been angry before he abruptly left, but surely she could have assumed it was because someone lied to him, not because he wanted Flint dead. What would cause Madi to send a crew nearly 500 miles to ensure Silver’s anger hadn’t been directed at Flint and that he hadn’t been harmed? 

But to find out, he’d likely have to answer Flint’s unspoken question, which Silver didn’t want to do. So, he pivoted. 

“Did you say Anne? As in... Anne Bonny?” Silver asked. He’d wondered what had happened to her after Jack Rackham’s death and her escape from prison nine years earlier. But why was she working with the maroons? Any bounty that may have been on her head had likely long been forgotten. 

This only seemed to further confuse Flint. “Yes. You said you talked to Madi?”

“Yes, but like I said yesterday, not for very long. I left after she told me that you wer-” Silver stopped himself before he finished the sentence. 

“Told you what about me?”

Silver pivoted again. “Did they anchor at the port?” There had only been a handful of ships there besides his own. A ship with a crew at least partially made up of maroon pirates would have been hard to miss. 

Flint continued to look confused. “No... They anchored well south of the port and took longboats down the rivers to get here. Like they normally do.”

Silver had no idea what Flint was talking about. “Like they normally do?”

“Madi really didn’t tell you anything?”

“No...”

Flint sighed. “After this place was taken over from Oglethorpe, and Thomas and I were able to get in contact with Madi, we made some arrangements so that we could become a fence for them, so that they could avoid Nassau - and ports - entirely. They’re here fairly often. Thomas manages it.” 

Silver took a moment to process this. That explained Madi’s distress. His shoulders slumped. “Oh.” 

“What?”

Silver hesitated. “It’s just... I brought you here with the intention of removing you from the equation. It seems what I did in actuality was remove myself.” 

Flint didn’t seem to know how to respond to this. He looked back at his diagram. “Hmm,” he said, then took the diagram and went back into his workshop. When he did not come back after several minutes, Silver decided to follow him. 

The workshop was larger than the front end, but it was a lot messier. There was a large table at the center of the room and smaller tables pressed up against two of the walls, a fireplace against the third, and stacks of wood and finished and partially finished furniture against the fourth. Everything was covered in wood shavings and various tools - chisels, axes, hammers. Flint was standing at the center of all of this, already carving a piece of wood to the specifications on the diagram. 

He glanced up when Silver came in. “Have you decided how long you’re staying?”

Silver shifted uncomfortably. “No.”

“What does your crew think about that?”

“I sent them away,” Silver said. To avoid being asked any more questions on the subject, he asked, “Speaking of which, is there somewhere I can stay? While I’m here.” 

“There’s an inn. You can stay there,” Flint said. 

Before Silver could respond, Kitt, Flint’s teenage daughter, who Silver had met the day before, burst into the workshop holding her nose, covered in blood. Flint stopped what he was doing. “Are you alright?” he asked. 

“I fell off Georgene,” Kitt said, taking a seat at the center table. “She stepped in a puddle of water that was too deep and she panicked.” Georgene was the name of her horse. Silver winced in sympathy. 

“Well, it’s a good thing it’s only a bloody nose, then,” Flint said after inspecting her. When she tried to put her head back to stop the bleeding, he gently tilted her head back down. “Don’t do that. Lean forward. Pinch your nose. Breathe through your mouth. Do that for about ten minutes and you should be fine.” 

Kitt nodded and hopped back up. 

“You should really sit,” Flint said.

“I can’t, I’m busy!” Kitt said, hurrying back out of the workshop while pinching her nose. She briefly stopped to wave at Silver with her free hand, seeming pleased to see him again. Silver waved back. 

Flint sighed. “Keep leaning forward,” he shouted after her. 

“Got it!”

Flint shook his head. He went back to carving wood. 

“You’re very patient with her,” Silver observed.

Flint raised an eyebrow at him. “As opposed to what?”

Silver stammered, “I-I didn’t mean anything by it.” 

“Hmm.” 

“Perhaps it’s none of my business, but... how did she come to be raised by you and Thomas?” Silver asked. He had gathered, from everything he’d seen and heard so far, that Flint and Thomas were open about their relationship, at least within the Isle, and that it wasn’t an issue, but the arrangement was still somewhat surprising to him. 

Flint didn’t seem bothered by the question. “A few years after Thomas got here, and a few years before I got here, she was dropped off here as a baby. One of the prison guards at the time said she was left by an escaped slave outside the gate. I assume because she passes as white, her mother thought she would be better off here. It’s unlikely she knew what the place was. In any case, Thomas took responsibility for her. When I got her, she sort of latched onto me, for whatever reason. It just felt like the natural thing, to raise her together.” 

Silver nodded. “And she likes to hunt?” On Silver’s way to the Isle the day before, he’d run into Kitt, equipped with a bow and arrow and two dead turkeys. Surely that wasn’t necessary, given how well the town seemed to be doing. 

Flint laughed. “There’s a Native tribe near here, the Yamacraw. Kitt is friends with one of the girls there, Nila. She taught her.” 

“That doesn’t worry you?” 

“Which part?” 

“The... killing things part.” 

Flint gave Silver a warning look. “No.”

“I just meant...”

“I know what you meant,” Flint said quietly. He stopped carving for a moment. “I know the way we do things here is... unconventional. I do worry sometimes that if and when she leaves this place she’ll have a hard time navigating the rest of the world. Not that she’s naive, but... Thomas and I raised her to be open-minded and to think for herself, which might not always be a good thing. Still... whatever she chooses to do, whatever she chooses to be, I don’t want her to think that she has anything other than my support.” 

This was clearly something that Flint had been struggling with for a while. Silver was surprised he felt comfortable sharing it with him. 

Silver cleared his throat. “I’m sure she knows that. And I’m sure whatever happens, the fact that she had two loving parents will have been a good place to start from. She’ll be alright.” 

Silver smiled at Flint. Flint smiled back.

\---

When Flint was done working for the day, he invited Silver back to his, Thomas, and Kitt’s house for supper. At first, Silver was somewhat excited about this, curious about seeing where Flint lived, but then he was informed that Anne would be there. 

Silver didn’t know how much Madi might have told her about what they’d discussed. If Anne did know, she hadn’t shared it with Flint yet, beyond saying that he’d been angry, unless he was somehow acting very casual about it. Silver wanted to keep it that way. He knew he couldn’t dodge Flint’s questions around the subject forever, but he wanted to discuss it in his own time. He was still processing it himself. 

Additionally, he wasn’t sure how pissed off Anne might have been that she’d had to sail all that way for nothing. She had never been the friendliest person, and now that she had allied with the maroons, she’d likely adopted a similar view on Silver as they had. He didn’t think they’d be very good supper companions. 

All of that considered, Silver still had not wanted to say no to Flint. So at the end of the day, he walked with him back to his house, chatting about nothing in particular on the way. 

After about ten minutes, they arrived at a cottage on the edge of a line of trees. There was a small garden on one side of the house and a cellar on the other. Inside the house, there was a main room with a kitchen and fireplace on one end, a long dining table in the middle, and a reading nook at the other end, with bookshelves filled almost completely and three comfortable-looking reading chairs. Beyond the main room was a short hallway with a door on each side. Silver assumed they led to the bedrooms. 

Silver and Flint were the last to arrive. Thomas, along with Kitt, who was looking much better than before, were in the kitchen finishing up with whatever they were cooking while Anne was sitting at the table talking to another teenage girl who, based off her clothes and dark skin, Silver thought might be Kitt’s friend Nila. Anne briefly stopped talking when she saw Silver, but quickly resumed, apparently deciding to ignore him for the time being. 

When Thomas saw Flint, he walked over to him and kissed him hello. Silver blushed. 

Thomas noticed Silver’s reaction and looked amused. “Good to see you again, Mr. Silver. Have you been bothering James at work all day?” 

Flint chuckled. “He’s not a bother.” 

“Who’s ready to eat?” Kitt asked the room, thankfully drawing attention away from Silver’s still red face. 

Over beef stew and bread and cider, the group had a surprisingly pleasant evening, mostly discussing goings-on in the Isle and on the Maroon Island. For once, Silver did very little talking, and no one mentioned what brought one of the other guests there on this particular occasion, though Silver did receive a few unpleasant looks. Silver wondered if Thomas asked Anne not to say anything. 

The only thing about the evening that was a particular shock to Silver, other than not being yelled at for the inconvenience he caused, is that Anne, as best as he can determine from the conversation, has seemingly been in a romantic relationship with Madi for at least a few years. The pair had even raised Anne’s daughter, Mary, together. Silver wasn’t quite sure what to make of this, but he was glad Madi had someone. It also helped to explain why Anne was still staying with the maroons, why Flint had been confused about Silver asking about Anne earlier, and at least some of the hate thrown Silver’s way. 

When it came time to leave, Thomas asked Silver and Anne, “Are the both of you staying at the inn?” 

“I am,” Silver mumbled. 

“No, I’m goin’ to find the rest of the shore crew and head back to the ship. I want to leave at first light tomorrow,” Anne said. She hugged Thomas, Flint, and Kitt, waved at Nila, and glared one last time at Silver before leaving. 

Silver breathed a sigh of relief. 

“I’m going to walk him to the inn,” Flint said to Thomas, gesturing at Silver. Thomas nodded.

Back outside and walking back the way they had come, Flint said to Silver, “I don’t know how long you’re planning on staying here - presumably at least until your ship comes back. If you want something to do while you wait, besides stare at me carving wood, Charlotte, who runs the tavern, could use a cook. If I recall correctly, you did eventually get a bit better at that job.” 

Silver narrowed his eyes. “I can’t tell if you’re joking or not.”

“She really does need the help.”

“Okay, so where is this tavern you speak of?” Silver asked. 

Flint pointed straight ahead. They had walked past Flint’s shop and toward the front of the town, where the old plantation house still stood. Directly behind it was the building Flint was pointing at. Like the plantation house, it was older than the rest of the buildings surrounding it. 

Silver frowned. “You’re taking me there now?”

“The inn and the tavern are in the same building,” Flint explained. 

Silver nodded, embarrassed. Of course it was. “What was it before? The building.”

“The living quarters for the laborers.” The prisoners. 

Silver regretted asking. 

Flint opened the door to the building and they stepped inside into the tavern. To the right was the bar, where a woman, presumably Charlotte, was serving drinks. The rest of the space to the center and left was taken up by rows of wooden benches, almost completely filled by patrons. 

“The kitchen’s through there,” Flint said, pointing to a door on the left. But he didn’t take Silver there. Instead, he walked them up to the bar. 

“Good evening, Charlotte,” he said to the woman. “Can I get a key to one of the rooms, please?” 

Charlotte glanced at Flint, then at Silver, then turned and opened a small, wooden cabinet filled with keys on hooks. She grabbed one and tossed it at Flint. “Room six,” she said, then winked. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“Very funny,” Flint said, smiling. Silver blushed. 

Flint led Silver around the bar and through a door that led to a long hallway with about a dozen doors on each side. Silver wondered if Flint had stayed in one of these rooms when he’d first arrived. He tried, without much luck, to shake the thought from his head. 

Unaware of Silver’s thoughts, Flint walked them a few doors down to get to #6. Flint unlocked and opened the door, then stepped aside, handing Silver the key. 

The room was small, the only furniture a bed, a desk, and chair. There was also a basin of water, a washcloth, and a sponge on the desk, a chamber pot in the corner, and a trunk underneath the bed for storage. 

Silver stepped inside and sat down on the bed. Flint hovered in the doorway. He looked like he wanted to say something important, but then decided better of it. He simply said, “Goodnight,” and made to leave.

“Flint,” Silver said.

Flint stopped. “Would you please call me James?”

“Flint,” Silver repeated stubbornly. “When are we going to talk about it?” 

“Talk about what?” 

“What I did,” Silver said. He didn’t think he needed to say more than that. 

Flint tucked a strand of hair behind his hair. “We don’t need to talk about that yet.” 

“I’d rather get it over with.”

Flint sighed. He stepped into the room and sat down on the chair. He held his breath for several seconds, possibly trying to find the right words, before he exhaled and started speaking. 

“I think you know by now that I’ve forgiven you, that I’m not angry with you. But that doesn’t mean I was never angry, or that I agree with what you did, even now. You... You... made a lot of choices that weren’t yours to make. I think you know that, and I think you know what the war meant to Madi and her people, so I’m not going to get into that. What I do want to say is that... when you said that you didn’t care how we would be portrayed later... Perhaps you don’t care, have never had any reason to care, because you’ll be portrayed accurately, more or less. But my whole existence, at least in regard to why I did the things I did, will likely be erased. I lost everything because of the love I bore for another man and how others chose to depict that. You saying that you didn’t care felt like you saying that what they did was acceptable and not worth fighting for, or at least not a good enough reason to fight. Then, you locked me in a prison, where I was to be kept apart from the world, along with others considered too unacceptable, for one reason or another, to be let out. You did to me what Alfred Hamilton did to Thomas. And, yes, in doing that, you returned me to him, but that doesn’t make it okay.” 

Silver looked down and wouldn't meet Flint’s gaze. “I do care... I did care, and I won’t say it wasn’t worth fighting for, or that what was done to you was acceptable. It wasn’t. But was it worth dying over? I know that I could’ve handled everything a lot better. I should have found a way to remove you from the war, to stop the war, that didn’t involve locking you in prison. That was wrong, I know. But I don’t regret that you’re alive and safe. You and Madi.”

“Because you care about us. But what about everyone else? How many more lives will be lost to English rule before someone tries to do what we did again?” Flint asked. 

Silver didn’t say anything. He’d thought about this, of course he’d thought about this. But he couldn’t reconcile it with his desire to keep Madi and Flint alive. What was the right answer? Perhaps there wasn’t one. 

Flint got up to leave.

“How much for the room?” Silver asked.

“We don’t charge people,” Flint said. 

“How much for me?”

Silver finally looked up at Flint. He was shaking his head. “Goodnight, John,” he said quietly before stepping out of the room and closing the door behind him, leaving Silver alone with his thoughts. 

\---

Silver did end up taking a job in the tavern, initially only to have something to do to avoid Flint for a few days, but he ended up enjoying it. The town had some interesting characters with some interesting stories to tell. An arsonist who loved the sea but was afraid of water, an old pirate who’d spent time in the Qing empire, a “lunatic” who’d tried to kill George I. Silver could’ve listened all day. 

Charlotte started Silver out on morning and afternoon shifts, when there were less customers, before she was satisfied enough with his cooking to let him on the evening shift, which Silver preferred. He liked staying up late and sleeping in, something he hadn’t gotten to do in a long time. 

It also meant that he had time to go and visit Flint during the day, once he thought enough time had passed since their last conversation. The first time Silver stepped back into Flint’s shop, about a week after, Flint had simply smiled at him, said he was glad to see Silver, and began teaching him how to measure and cut wood. “If you’re going to show up here, you might as well be useful,” Flint had said. So Silver had two jobs. 

They settled into a routine. Silver would join Flint in his shop around noon and work with him through the afternoon until he needed to go back to the tavern to prepare for the evening rush. Then sleep, and start the whole thing over again. 

One day, about a month after Silver had arrived, he and Flint were walking back from delivering some new chairs to the meetinghouse when Silver caught sight of Thomas talking to Ben, Charlotte’s husband, outside the coffeehouse. They suddenly leaned in to kiss each other. 

Silver froze. Flint kept walking for a few paces before he realized Silver had stopped. “What’s wrong?” Flint asked.

“Uh-”

Flint followed Silver’s gaze to Thomas and Ben. They were no longer kissing, but the way they were leaning toward each other wasn’t exactly platonic. “Oh,” Flint said. He kept walking. 

Silver hurried to catch up with him. “Flint.”

“John.”

Silver rolled his eyes. “What was that?”

Flint glanced at Silver. “Exactly what it looked like.”

“Why don’t you seem concerned?” 

“I’m not,” Flint said. They’d reached the shop and Flint led them inside. 

“You knew?”

Flint nodded. 

“But...you live together. You have a daughter,” Silver said. He didn’t understand.

Flint tapped his fingers against the counter. “Thomas and Ben had a relationship before I got here. Thomas wanted to keep seeing Ben, but he also wanted a relationship with me, so he has relationships with both of us, just different sorts of relationships.” 

Silver wasn’t going to ask what “different sorts of relationships” meant. 

He did ask, “Charlotte also knows about this?”

Flint sighed. “Obviously.” 

Silver cleared his throat. “And do you...?”

“Do I what?” Flint asked. 

“Do you do that? Have... different relationships?”

“No.” 

“Why not?”

Flint shrugged, smiled. “Guess I just haven’t found the right person,” he joked. 

\---

Another month went by. Silver and Flint didn’t talk much about their past together, or Silver’s at all. Flint often told him stories about his childhood, his time in the Royal Navy, and the last ten years he’d spent helping to build the Isle to what it was. 

Flint never asked Silver any questions about his past, probably remembering the last time he’d tried, during their sword fighting lessons on the Maroon Island all those years ago. And he’d stopped asking what Madi had told Silver more recently on the Island that had gotten him so upset. 

“Do you remember when I told you that my past had no relevance?” Silver asked. They were in the workshop and Flint was teaching him how to use a coping saw. 

“Yes,” Flint said slowly. Of course he did. 

Silver fidgeted. “I know now that that isn’t true. Everything I’ve done... I probably wouldn’t have done it if it weren’t for where I came from.” 

“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to,” Flint said carefully. 

“I know... but I do,” Silver said. 

Flint put down the saw and nodded. “Alright,” he said. 

“I was found as a baby, crying alone in a wagon, on the side of a road leading into London,” Silver started. “My parents, or who I assume were my parents, a young couple, had been robbed and murdered, and I’d been left to die. But I got lucky, if you want to call it that. Another young couple, who were also heading into London to start new lives and had just lost their own baby, were the ones that came across me. I suppose they looked at me as a second chance. They became the mother and father that I remember. My earliest memories are happy ones. I do remember being loved... but around the time I turned five, my mother died, and my father, in his grief, turned to drink. He became angry, violent. He often told me that it was my fault that she’d died, that she’d been cursed the moment she’d decided to save me from that wagon. 

But it took four years before he actually started to hit me. I tolerated that for about another four years before I took a knife from the kitchen and stabbed him to death with it while he was passed out drunk. When the City Watch came, I told them someone broke in to rob us, and that when my father had fought back, it was the robber who had stabbed him. They did try to send me to St. John’s after that - the orphanage I told you about - but I ran away. I lived on the street, stealing and taking odd jobs to get by. Eventually, I became a seaman and ended up on that merchant ship you found me on. So... that’s my story. I hope you don’t think less of me for it.” 

Silver’s hands were shaking. 

Flint had listened silently through all of this, his expression neutral. He reached out and took Silver’s hands, steadying them. “There’s nothing you could tell me that would make me think less of you, John,” he said softly. “Thank you for telling me.” 

Silver knew he meant it. 

\---

Another month later, around the time Silver should have been leaving if he wanted to make it back to Martinique in time, Flint took him on a walk. 

It was a Sunday, the only day neither of them worked. Flint usually spent the day with Thomas and Kitt, and Silver took the time to wander around the town and familiarize himself with it. But on this Sunday, Flint had come to Silver’s room at the inn and told him he wanted to show him something. 

Flint took him outside of the town proper to a small wooded area Silver hadn’t been to before. After a few minutes, they came to a clearing with a small cottage at the center. It looked similar to Flint’s own home, but smaller, and it appeared newly built. The wooden slats had not yet been beaten down or warped by the Georgia sun. 

At the edge of the clearing, Flint leaned against a tree, pointed casually at the house, and said. “If you want somewhere to stay other than the inn.”

Silver had to repeat the sentence multiple times in his head. Then he turned and stared at Flint. “You built me a house?”

Flint bent his head, started picking at a loose thread on his shirt. “I built _a_ house. You can live in it, if you want.”

“When did you even have time to do this?” Silver asked. 

“In the mornings, when you’re still sleeping,” Flint said. He’d stopped messing with his shirt and folded his arms across his chest. He still wasn’t looking at Silver. 

Silver raised an eyebrow. “And... you did all this by yourself?”

Flint pushed himself off the tree and walked into the clearing, toward the cottage. “No, Lewis helped me,” he said, over his shoulder. 

“Who the hell is Lewis?” Silver asked with an exasperated huff as he hurried after Flint. 

“My apprentice,” Flint said. He walked up to the door, opened it, and stepped inside. 

“You have an apprentice? I thought I was your-” Silver stopped as he followed Flint into the cottage and caught sight of the inside.

Not only had Flint built Silver a house, but he’d also furnished it. Inside the main room was the typical fireplace and kitchen, a small table with a bench, and a chest of drawers similar to the one Flint had started working on when Silver had first arrived. Silver now realized he couldn’t recall what had happened to it. Through the door to the bedroom in the back, there was a large bed with a feather mattress. 

“-apprentice,” Silver finished. 

Flint finally turned and looked at Silver. He smiled. “You’re too old to be an apprentice. Lewis only works with me in the mornings. He has to help his family in their shop in the afternoon. You’d know about this - and this house - if you ever got up before noon.” 

Silver opened and closed his mouth. “I... don’t know what to say.” 

Flint shrugged. “You don’t have to say anything.”

Silver’s heart was pounding in his chest. “I thought you were dead,” Silver blurted out.

“What?” Flint said, frowning.

“A few years after... after I left you here, I sent some men back to get you, you and Thomas. Hands, and Morgan, and Gunn. They came back and told me you were both dead. They thought I’d be better off without you in my life. It wasn’t until I spoke with Madi that I realized they’d lied. That’s why I was angry when I left the Island. It wasn’t you I was angry with,” Silver said. He realized, as he’d finished speaking, that he’d started crying.

Flint tentatively stepped toward Silver and reached his hands up to cup his face. He wiped the tears away with his thumbs, then pressed their foreheads together. 

“I’m sorry that happened,” Flint murmured. 

“I would have been here sooner if...” Silver sniffed.

Flint stroked Silver’s hair. “I know. It’s alright.”

They stood like this for several minutes while Silver composed himself. When he pulled away, he made sure to look Flint in the eye before saying, “James?”

The name felt strange in Silver’s mouth. But it also felt right. 

The other man blinked in surprise at the use of his first name. Then he grinned. “Yes?”

“Thank you,” Silver said. “For the house. And for everything else.” 

“Of course, John.”

\---

On the day John was supposed to meet his crew in Martinique, he had to work the afternoon shift in the tavern. The usual cook, Moses, was out sick. 

Thomas, who worked next door in the old plantation house, now the business center for the town, came in about an hour after John started his shift and asked for a plate of whatever John was serving. John brought him a meat pie and a cup of cider. 

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you,” Thomas said after he’d thanked John. 

John rubbed the nape of his neck. “Oh?” he said. Thomas and John had spoken on numerous occasions over the past few months, but only ever when James was around. They got along well enough, but John wasn’t sure why Thomas would want to talk to him alone. 

Thomas gestured for John to take a seat across from him. John looked around the mostly empty tavern, realized he didn’t have a good excuse to say no, and reluctantly sat down. 

“You know James loves you, don’t you?” Thomas asked, as if he was asking about the weather. He took a bite of his pie. 

John’s eyes went wide. “No, he doesn’t.”

“What makes you say that?” Thomas asked. 

“He loves _you_ ,” John said, his breath fast and shallow. What the hell was this? 

“Yes,” Thomas agreed. “That doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you, as well.”

John didn’t know what to say to that. He thought about Thomas and Ben. Clearly any argument he tried to make about monogamous love wasn’t going to work. 

“He started a war for you,” John said. 

For the first time, Thomas looked uncomfortable. He shifted in his seat. “That’s true,” he said. “But he allowed it to end because of you.” 

John gave a nervous laugh. “I didn’t really give him much of a choice.”

Thomas leaned back in his seat and looked at John. “Hmm. Do you recall what happened to Dooley?”

“What does that-”

“James shot him in the chest, did he not?” Thomas asked.

“Yes-”

“Why did he do that?” 

When John didn’t say anything, Thomas sighed. “Dooley was going to shoot you, wasn’t he? Kill you?” 

“I don’t know,” John said. 

“You do know,” Thomas insisted. “And I think we both know James is a master strategist. Given that, why would he, all things considered, kill his only remaining ally to save the man who he knew would likely be his downfall, if he did not love that man?”

John ran a hand through his hair. “Even if that were true... that was a long time ago.” 

Thomas finished his pie and cider and stood to leave. “But him building you a house, despite not knowing how long you’d be staying, wasn’t.” 

Thomas left before John could respond.

\---

John spent the rest of the afternoon shift thinking about what Thomas had said. 

Did James love him?

He thought about all the time they’d spent together over the last few months, mainly in James’ workshop. The fact that James let John show up there everyday without any complaints. “This wasn’t nearly as much fun before you got here,” James had said a few weeks ago after they’d both spent five minutes laughing over a table they’d completely managed to mess up. The look he’d given John when he’d said that had made something twist in his gut, but he’d ignored it, thought it was nothing. But he’d seen that look other times, too. Both recently and when James had still been Captain Flint. 

John also couldn’t ignore how forgiving of John’s past actions James had been. How understanding he had been when John had told him about his childhood. How he’d wiped away John’s tears when he’d finally explained why it had taken John so long to return to him. 

And as Thomas had pointed out, he’d built John a damn house. When he didn’t even know if John would be there long enough to live in it. 

Perhaps James did love John. 

But did John love James?

The answer came to him as soon as he - finally - asked the question. 

Yes. He did love James. And he had for a very long time. 

When Moses showed up in the tavern saying that he was feeling better and that he could take the evening shift for John, if he wanted, John was out the door as fast as his crutch would allow him. 

He made his way to James’ shop and burst through the door. The shop was empty. James had already left for the day.

John thought about going to James’ house, but then thought better of it. This felt like something that should be a private conversation. It would have to wait until tomorrow. 

John made his way back to his house - the house James had built for him - feeling both heavier and lighter than he had before. He’d finally figured out what had kept him at the Isle all these months, and now that he had that information, he needed to share it. 

When he made it back to the clearing where his house stood, John saw that his door was ajar. He frowned. Had he forgotten to close it that morning? He’d been given little notice that he’d need to be in the tavern for the afternoon shift and he had rushed out the door-

James appeared in the doorway. When he saw John, he waved.

John made his way toward him. “What are you doing here?”

James gestured inside. “I was just dropping off that book we talked about. ‘The Fatal Inquiry’. I thought you’d still be working.”

“Moses was feeling better,” John said absently. He stepped past James into the house. The book was sitting on the table. 

James followed him back inside. “That’s good. Is... everything else alright?” 

John turned toward James. Hesitantly, he stepped forward until he was about a foot in front of him. He swallowed. “If I kiss you, will it cause any trouble between you and Thomas?”

James’ eyes widened for a moment in surprise. They searched John’s face for what seemed like an eternity. “No,” he said finally. 

“Do you _want_ me to kiss you?” John asked. 

The response came quicker this time. “Yes.”

So John did. He closed the space between them and pulled James’ lips to his, his free hand tangling in James’ hair.

It started out softly, the both of them trying to figure out how they fit together like this, but then James opened his mouth slightly, and John took the opportunity to stick his tongue inside, seeking James’. John removed his hand from James’ hair and moved it to his back, desperately trying to pull the other man closer to him. He deepened the kiss, suddenly frenzied by the thought that he could have been doing this for years, that he’d waste all that time. 

John, without thinking, removed his hand from his crutch and put it on James’ ass. 

The crutch hit the wall beside them with a loud thud, startling both of them. They pulled apart, staring at each other, breathing heavy. John swayed slightly, his weight no longer fully pressed into James. James put a hand on John’s hip to steady him. 

“We don’t... we don’t have to rush,” James breathed. “I’m not going anywhere.” 

As if to prove his point, he slowly started kissing across John’s face. His forehead, his eyelids, his nose, his jaw, his chin, before making his way back to John’s lips. John felt weak. 

“Go to bed with me?” John asked. 

James lifted John up by his thighs and carried him into the bedroom. He laid him down on the bed and crawled on top of him so that he was straddling John’s waist. He pulled his shirt over his head. John quickly followed suit with his own shirt. 

John ran a hand across James’ chest, the scars he found there. Then he let his hand drift downward, across his stomach, and came to rest on James’ cock, hard through his breeches. At the contact, James tilted his head back, his eyes closed, his lips slightly parted. 

John tugged at the waistband of James’ breeches and James came back to himself for long enough to get his breeches off, and to help John out of his. Then he was back on top of John, kissing him again. 

James reached a hand between them and brought their cocks together, stroking them both a few times before letting go and beginning to slowly thrust forward. They both moaned.

John grabbed James’ ass, begging him to go faster. James just smiled into John’s lips, maintaining his pace. John relented, letting the feeling of their bodies and their cocks moving together bring them to climax.  
  
John came first, James soon after. They were still kissing, foreheads pressed together. 

When they had both recovered, James got up from the bed, wet a washcloth and gently cleaned both of them off. After he was done, he put the cloth away and came back and laid down on his side facing John, who was sitting up, trying to process what had just happened. 

John stared down at James in awe. “Don’t you need to go?” 

James shook his head. “Thomas is with Ben.” 

“What about Kitt? Won’t she wonder where you are?” John asked.

“No, she’s with Nila. The Yamacraw have a sort of festival to mark the beginning of the yearly corn harvest. Kitt wanted to go,” James explained. 

“Oh,” John said. “So... you’re staying?”

James looked up at him. “I can go.” 

“No,” John said quickly. He laid down so that he was facing James, their noses almost touching. 

“I love you,” John whispered.

James smiled, reached out a hand and squeezed John’s hip. “I love you, too.”

John rolled over so that he could rest his back against James’ chest. James kissed John’s neck and pressed his head between his shoulder blades. They both fell asleep. It was the best sleep John had had in years. 

\---

John woke up in the morning to an empty bed. He panicked for a moment, thinking it had all been a dream, before he heard rustling in the main room. 

James appeared in the doorway, dressed and holding a bowl of porridge. “Ah, so you can get up before noon,” he joked. 

John reached his arms out, more for James than for the porridge. 

James came and sat on the edge of the bed. John took the bowl from James’ hands, put it on the nightstand, and pulled James on top of him, kissing him. “Who told you you could get out of bed?”

“I have to go to work,” James said between kisses. “Lewis will be expecting me.”

“I don’t think I like Lewis,” John said. 

James laughed. “Well, when you leave, I’m going to need someone to pick up the slack. You’ve actually gotten pretty good.” 

John pulled back. “You still think I’m leaving?”

“You aren’t?” James asked, sounding hopeful.

“You... didn’t just want this to be a temporary thing, did you?” John asked, motioning between them.

“I don’t want it to be,” James said quietly.

John took James’ head in his hands. “I was supposed to meet my ship in Martinique yesterday. If I was going to leave, I would have done it a while ago.” 

“Oh, thank God,” James said. He pressed himself against John, kissing him once again. 

“I thought you had to get to work?” John teased.

James took John’s cock in his hand. “I can be a little late.”

\---

After James left, John laid in bed, smiling. He thought back to all those years ago when he’d thought James - Captain Flint - could control the weather. He’d thought James was a god, larger than life. But he wasn’t. He was just a man. Just like him. Blood, muscle, skin, and bone. Human. And he loved John. 

They would need to figure out how this relationship would work, with Thomas, and with Kitt. But John had no doubt they would. 

They could do this, the two of them. 

John had never looked forward to anything so much in his life.


End file.
